Taiwan Part III: Taipei Restaurants

This includes all the sit-down restaurants I went to during the trip...

Wu Chao Shou (Sichuan Food)
Most of my family enjoys spicy foods. For my cousin's birthday we went here. My favorite dish of the night were the sauteed string beans. And they came with these wrappers that you normally see when you have duck. I never had it this way before and it was pretty tasty!

Diamond Tony's 101 (Panorama view, 85th Floor of Taipei 101)
Since my mom has been in Taiwan since the beginning of the year, we didn't really get to celebrate Mother's Day with her. This was a good occasion to go see the view of Taipei. My cousin and his family went the day before to celebrate his birthday and they said it was good food and a good deal. Plus you can't get a view of the city like this anywhere else! (For those of you that don't know, Taipei 101 is the tallest building in Taipei by far...you can pretty much see it anywhere in the city.) It's a 4 course lunch and the prices are determined by your entree. Prices start at NT800 and go up to NT3300. We were perfectly content with the 800 entrees. hehe. There's also a 10% service charge. So total came to NT880 per person (almost US$30 a person, which is pretty good considering the venue, # of courses, type of food and service). You can't find deals like this in Dallas really...

Homemade Garlic Bread with Fresh Crab Meat Cream Sauce to start. The bread was super soft and the sauce was rich, creamy and luscious. A great start to the meal.

Wild Mushroom Cream Soup. I love cream of mushroom soup. The flavor was great, but I wish there were more chunks of mushrooms inside.

Appetizers:
Caesar Salad, Diamond Tony's Style (romaine lettuce in homemade Caesar dressing, topped with crispy bacon and Parmigiano-Reggiano). Asian style Caesar salad is the only way to describe this. haha. The dressing was weird. It was almost like there was soy sauce in it?

Smoked Calf's Tongue (decorated with capers and tuna mayonnaise). I ordered this. The tongue was tender enough but I thought it was sliced too thinly. Good, not great.

Barbecued Fresh Oysters (with spinach, sour cream). I liked the flavor of it, but my sister says she's had better.

Entrees:
Ink Fettuccine (with smoked salmon in cream sauce) NT800~ This was my choice. It was so pretty...the contrasting colors of the black pasta with the cream sauce. The pasta was cooked perfectly. The sauce was rich and decadent. I loved it. It was my favorite entree of the day.

Roasted Spring Chicken (in piccante sauce) NT800~. My mom's dish. The chicken was pretty tiny and flavors were just ok. Not the best...

Oven Baked Pork Spine Steak (with pepper and onion gravy sauce) NT800~. My sister's. The pork was super tender...almost like eating super tender steak. I liked the mushrooms on the side.

Sliced Sea Bass (pan fried with cream clams sauce) NT800~. My dad's choice. The fish had a nice crispy sear but needed more seasoning. The cream sauce was great and paired well since the fish flavor was so light.

Choice of Coffee or Tea

For dessert, everyone gets the same thing. Tiramisu (with fruit and chocolate truffle). We were so full already but the tiramisu was nice and light. My stomach said I couldn't eat anymore, but I managed to stuff it all down. haha.

I enjoyed the lunch overall. You can't beat the view of the city and the food wasn't shabby either. It was just a lot of cream throughout the meal which put me into a food coma for the rest of the day. haha.

Quality of Food:

Service:

Ambiance:

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Overall Experience:


Ming Yue (Xiao Long Bao - Soup Dumplings)
This place is around the corner from my grandma's and we go every time we visit. I think they have the best Xiao Long Bao (better and cheaper than Ding Tai Fong in my opinion...)

Ming Yue Soup Dumplings (8pcs) NT130~

Vegetarian Dumplings (8pcs) NT150~

Pot Stickers (10pcs) NT130~

Green Onion Pancake NT50~
Mushroom and Asparagus Stirfry NT180~
Shrimp Fried Rice NT150~
Sauteed Water Spinach NT120~

Black Sesame Mochi Dessert. This was the only thing I haven't had there before. I loooove black sesame and this was delicious. I ate my mom's as well. hahaha.

Fullon Hotel Danshui - Fishermen's Wharf: Buffet
My uncle treated us to a buffet lunch here one day. It was pretty epic. I loved all the food selections (including some really fresh sashimi) and all you can eat Haagen Dazs ice cream! Heck yea!! There was prime rib, create your own noodles or pasta station, assorted breads (french or Asian), salad bar, hot foods, 5 different dessert stations... OMG! My uncle got a discount so I think it was about NT590~ a person. He was very impressed with the amount of food I ate and was glad that I got his money's worth. hehe. :)

Spaghetti House.
My sister and cousin and I went to find some lunch by my grandma's hospital. This place was super cheap! Each entree came with a soup and tea.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce NT80~

Mushroom Bacon Penne NT95~

Garlic Bread (3pcs) NT30~

The flavors weren't the greatest but the pasta was cooked perfectly al dente. Asians know how to cook pasta, that's for sure! And the garlic bread was delicious. The best part? Three of us ate for about US$7!!! Awesome.

One of my uncles treated the family to this Peking Duck Restaurant. He has to have Peking Duck every time he visits Taipei. The duck here was pretty good. Eaten in 3 ways: the standard wrap, sauteed with veggies, and a soup. The other dishes were good too!

There's always good food when I go back to Taipei. Needless to say I gained some weight in the short time I was there...but I'd say it was worth it. I'm working really hard to lose it all now though. :( haha.

~~ CHOMP CHOMP ~~